Semiconductor devices, typically in the form of integrated circuits, are widely used in almost all electronic equipment, such as handheld calculators, personal computers, automobiles, cellular telephones, and sophisticated mainframe computers. A typical semiconductor device includes a semiconductor substrate which, in turn, includes a number of active devices formed adjacent a first surface of the substrate. For example, one or more power metal-oxide semiconductor field-effect transistors (MOSFETs) may be formed in active regions of the substrate. Power MOSFETs are often used because of their relatively high switching speeds as compared to bipolar transistors, for example. Power MOSFETs may be used in power conversion or motor control circuitry.
The so-called “on-resistance” of a power MOSFET affects its power handling capability, as well as its operating energy efficiency. A higher on-resistance translates into greater power dissipation required for the chip. In addition, for portable battery-powered devices, for example, higher energy efficiency may be a primary concern to thereby extend battery life. In other words, in many applications it may be desired to provide low-voltage MOSFETs with a lower on-resistance.
To address this goal, the power semiconductor industry has been adopting very large scale integration (VLSI) technologies to increase device cell densities. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,635,742 to Hoshi et al. discloses a lateral double-diffused MOSFET wherein source and drain openings are cyclically arranged so that at least two rows of source openings are arranged between adjacent drain openings to thereby reduce the on-resistance. Such common approaches to reducing the on-resistance have concentrated on reducing the contribution to the on-resistance of the scalable components of the integrated circuit, such as channel resistance.
Unfortunately, the on-resistance contribution from the unscalable regions of the integrated circuit, such as the substrate, for example, remain constant even as cell densities are increased. Moreover, as the cell densities increase further, the substrate on-resistance becomes almost a dominating factor for lower-voltage power MOSFETs which typically operate at less than about 30 V. For example, a 14 mil thick, N-type substrate with a resistivity of 4.5 mΩ·cm has a specific on-resistance of 0.16 mΩ·cm2. The relatively high resistivity of conventional substrates may also cause undesired contact resistance with a backside contact layer, for example.
Currently, the die specific on-resistance of a 30 V MOSFET as offered by Fairchild under the designation FDS 6680, for example, has a specific on-resistance of 0.279 mΩ·cm2. This demonstrates that if the 14 mil substrate was used, more than half of the device specific on-resistance would come from the substrate. Accordingly, one of the most significant efforts for producing the next generation of power MOSFETs will be to reduce the specific on-resistance of the substrate.
Since the substrate specific on-resistance is the product of its thickness and resistivity, there are two ways to reduce the specific on-resistance. The first is simply to thin the wafer from which the device is made. The second approach is to lower the substrate resistivity. Unfortunately, thinning the wafer is complicated and relatively expensive. In addition, too thin of a substrate may be difficult to handle and the production yield may be too low. Relating to lowering the resistivity of the substrate, the resistivity is currently limited by the silicon or other semiconductor material properties.